Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Seriously, this would be pretty much the best thing since Christine O'Donnell. Gohmert would be certain to say nutty things Monday through Saturday and twice on Sundays, and he'd drive plenty of traffic to both Tea Party and liberal media. Hey, he'd probably even have his buddy Michele Bachmann campaign with him!

I don't really have anything else to say about it...well, only that I suppose one can't rule out the possibility that Gohmert could actually defeat Cornyn. At least there's probably some real differentiation between the two; Cornyn is a mainstream extremely conservative Republican, while Gohmert appears to be a raving lunatic. Given the choice, it's not immediately clear which way most Texas Republican primary voters would go.

All I know is: everyone who writes about politics or has TV shows or web sites or whatever devoted to politics, not to mention all political junkies, will now begin begging, begging, begging Gohmert to make this challenge. Also, of course, the Democratic Party -- even in Texas, I'd say that Gohmert against a generic Democrat is probably a toss-up, and I'd put my money on the Democrat.

I have some friends on Facebook who post every ridiculous thing that Gohmert says. I like to point out that a century ago there were probably fifty people in congress just like him but more so, and with open white supremacy to boot. Am I right in thinking this?

Gohmert. Good for a few chuckles. Spreads the goofiness far and wide, even engaging folks like Huma Abedin, adding avenues for Anthony Weiner humor too. Tea Party champion. Laughs all around.

I read the NRO article, and to the right they had the list of usually suspect columnists, where I noticed that not-friend-of-the-Plain-Blog Kevin Williamson has an article titled Bring on the Draconian Cuts.

You won't like Williamson's article. It engages in predictable Obama-as-socialist sophistry; its harsh prescriptions for programs to be cut will no doubt offend your sensibilities. On the plus side, Williamson paints a dismal picture of how difficult getting a handle on the out-year deficits - the ones Cantor may or may not have referred to Sunday - will end up being.

One last digression: even international Keynesian superhero Paul Krugman recognizes that those out-year deficits start to look troubling in this high-debt environment. Krugman isn't worried, though, because unlike Williamson, Krugman is quite confident we have the political will to address the alarming 2016-2023 deficits that Cantor may or may not have talked about Sunday.

If, heaven forfend, Williamson is right and Krugman wrong, at least in terms of what it will take to wrestle those out-year deficits back to sanity, then Louie Gohmert and his clown show are more or less the ones leading that charge. So more Gohmert = funny, and also not.

Not sure if you clicked through to Williamson's column, but he finishes with a somewhat unique (in NRO land) observation that is also perhaps sinister: every dollar of non-defense discretionary spending has a patron, and every patron has an urgent reason that dollar can't get cut. Throw in the additional challenges of entitlement and defense reform, and the coming deficits seem daunting indeed.

But back to Gohmert and those like him. Sure, he's not leading the charge. Sure, he's not trying to cut the deficit. Per Williamson, maybe no one is. Or more to the point, maybe everyone knows that the deficit implosion is coming soon, and they're playing a complex game of chicken to protect their own patronage.

Clowns, after all, are a sideshow, are they not? Perhaps in Tea Party/deficit alarmist land, the sideshow is the main attraction, to ensure that the Man keeps his paws off each stakeholder's beloved constituent federal spending.

1. Haven't clicked through; more interested in what you have to say than what Williamson has to say.

2. But...someone *is* trying to do something about the deficit. ACA is deficit reduction, including those scary-looking out years. Raising taxes is deficit reduction. The Budget Control Act was deficit reduction. Re-instating PayGo was deficit reduction.

Remember, I'm against most of that stuff; I'm definitely not shilling for Obama and other mainstream Dems on this. Just reciting the facts. The record for some 20, 30 years of this is pretty obvious to anyone who actually wants to look at it.

Sorry to belabor this, and also sorry for being all dour in a lighthearted thread (I never get invited to fun things), but if we go back to that Cantor chart, and just add the CBO's annual deficit projections out to 2023, we get (roughly, net of GDP growth)

Of course, that's the CBO's baseline scenario using whatever inputs they are provided; in the status quo that 134% could easily be worse. But 134% is plenty bad enough. At a 30,000 foot level, if 100% of GDP is nearly historically high, then looking forward 10 years and having that percentage a third higher still...unbelievable.

Which brings us to Gohmert and O'Donnell and the rest of the clown show that is the face of the Tea Party. Don't circuses bring out the clowns over in this ring in order to change the set in that ring over there without the audience noticing?

So, certainly, have a laugh at Gohmert. But keep in mind that while you're laughing, there's something important you're not supposed to be watching.

Anonymous, you're right, I went back and re-crunched the numbers in a more realistic way (starting at Debt = 100% of GDP in 2013 and then adding the absolute deficits to 2023, inferring GDP in 2023 and comparing that with the sum of the 2013 Debt + additional deficits). That's a much better way to do the calculation, and it leads to a much lower no. than 134% (I get something around 90%). I was wrong. Though 90% is still not great, 10 years out, especially considering the inevitable off the books war or ACA hiccup, its a heck of a lot better than 134%. Retracted.

And purusha, there are probably 100 reasons the national debt is different from your mortgage; two obvious ones are the mortgage is collateralized by an appreciating (in normal markets) asset, and the Federal Government (should) spend to about 20% of GDP - if you're doing the same with your salary, you might be Dave Ramsey's greatest hero, but you're certainly alone in that!

CSH, the Williamson piece is the usual superficial nonsense. There is more to government spending than handing money to special interests. As I've said many times before, cutting spending in a downturn is counterproductive. Europe turned to austerity in 2010. Three years of austerity has sent Portugal's unemployment rate from 12% to 18%. Spain's is over 27%. Germany, which got through the crash of 2008 just fine, has pressed itself to the edge of recession as a consequence of its own austerity policies. The IMF's study of Europe has shown that the multiplier effect is especially high in such circumstances, meaning that each dollar (or euro) cut from the budget has reduced GDP growth by an amount larger than the cut. The Eurozone's economy grew by 0.4% between 2010 and 2013, not 0.4% a year, 0.4% total! Debt-to-GDP ratios then get worse, not better, worse, as growth is stifled. That's why our debt-to-GDP ratio has improved as the UK's, for instance, has deteriorated under austerity. In such circumstances, arguing that the cuts aren't draconian enough is just wrong-headed.

Scott, we're way far afield now, though it does seem to me that there is a critical difference between the US and Europe where deficits are concerned: in both cases, the poorer states gave up their right to print currency (whose devaluation is a huge lifeline for a struggling, developing state).

So really, Portugal v. the United States is a misleading comparison where stimulus is concerned; a more relevant comparison is Portugal v. Mississippi. Its almost a tautology that, in exchange for not being able to devalue its own currency, Mississippi requires a fair bit of DC bailout to stay in the union. The same logic applies to, but isn't being applied to, Portugal - which is a whole different conversation than stimulus.

BTW - Williamson isn't arguing that debt per se is bad, he's making the point that even the most incremental improvements to the US' fiscal situation require many, many pounds of flesh. "Draconian" is sarcastic in Williamson's column, with the implication that we're really in for it if we ever find ourselves having to make, you know, for real draconian cuts.

Williamson is calling for more cuts. His many, many pounds of flesh will leave the patient dead. That's the whole point. it's not the solution, it's the problem. Portugal shows you what more cuts do in circumstances like this. Not having its own currency means that it can't devalue, which would be an alternative to cuts, but that's not the issue here. The issue is that it engaged in austerity, and austerity is making its situation worse, not better. The same would happen here.

With regard to European deficits: Of the various countries in Europe, you can say that Greece's problems are rooted in deficits, but that's about it. Spain and Ireland were in surplus until the crisis hit.

I spent a lot of years (21) in Texas, and I think anyone who would put money on the "generic Democrat" against the Republican in a statewide race (esp. a very high-profile race, as for a U.S. Senate seat) could be in for a grim surprise. The D's haven't won ANY statewide race since 1994, and crazy R nominees (Ted Cruz, anyone?) have not disrupted that trend. Everyone says, wistfully, that TX will turn blue someday, but 2014? Sounds about 4-6 years too soon to me, at best. If the hateful and spectacularly ignorant Gohmert beats Cornyn in the R primary, the smart money says Gohmert's going to Washington. Mind you, I'm not sure whether it's worse for the Republic for Texas' "other" seat to be filled by a craven quasi-establishment R like Cornyn who will basically vote the Tea Party line anyway, or a "true believer" like Gohmert. But nobody should think that Louie Gohmert is too crazy for Texas.

I wrote about this in my Salon column a bit ago on Wendy Davis...I do not agree with those who think Texas is about to turn into a Democratic state anytime soon. But it *is* possible for the minority party to win statewide races pretty much anywhere. Republicans have won statewide in HI and MA recently; Democrats have won in Nebraska.

I think Gohmert is enough of a clown that it could be very competitive.

From one of my Twitter friends, I think, I've heard the claim that Texas is the only state where a single party has won every statewide election since 2002 (and in fact Texas Democrats haven't won a statewide election since 1994, AFAIK, and out of quite a few statewide offices).

On checking quickly, there's also Oregon (which elected Smith in 2002 itself) and Utah (which elected a Democratic Attorney General, Jan Graham, in 1996--still more recent than any Democrat has been elected to statewide office in Texas).

It's not just that Gohmert's a clown, he's the sort of clown who's likely to say something Akin-like, and do it repeatedly. One watches Gohmert say some of the things he says and wonders that he can get dressed in the morning.

I have to confess that the modern Republican Party completely puzzles me. There is such a weird inversion (or perversion?) of the normal incentives - to watch them go from the party of stern, dull, responsible Dad to the limits of crazy and not pay more of an electoral price seems unique.

Are there any precedents for this? Where a party or group was more or less rewarded (by their base) for getting increasingly extreme, and not completely banished by the general population? (I realize the batting average ain't 1000, there are the Murdocks and Akins and O'Donells, but still...)

How long can they keep it up? My guess is forever, as long as the mood of enough of them boils down to: the administration is illegitimate and thus everything it touches is fruit from a poison tree. And it seems like a sudden swing better/worse in the economy could really have a big impact. At the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, lord help us if a really bad depression hit.

Predicting the future is impossible but I'm hoping for some historical perspective here.